Category: Universe

Using ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT), an international team of astronomers has found the hottest and most massive double star with components so close that they touch each other. The two stars in the extreme system VFTS 352 could be heading for a dramatic end, during which the two stars either coalesce to create a …

Two types of pulsating stars exist among stars with a mass between 1.5 and 2.5 solar masses: the delta Scuti stars and the gamma Doradus stars. Theory tells us that when such stars have a surface temperature between 12,000 and 12,900° F (6,600 and 7,100° C), they can have both types of pulsations, i.e., they …

A well-known astronomer resigned from the University of California, Berkeley, where he had been a professor for 16 years after an investigation found he sexually harassed several female students, two top administrators said. The university immediately accepted Professor Geoffrey Marcy’s resignation, according to a Wednesday statement from Chancellor Nicholas B. Dirks and Executive Vice Chancellor …

Researchers have found that galaxies forming stars at extreme rates 9 billion years ago were more efficient than average galaxies today. The question astronomers have been asking is whether such starbursts in the early universe were the result of having an overabundant gas supply, or whether galaxies converted gas more efficiently. In general, the larger a …

An international team of astronomers, including Dr Simon Vaughan from the University of Leicester’s Department of Physics and Astronomy, has discovered a previously unknown link between the way young stars grow and the way black holes and other exotic space objects feed from their surroundings. The study, ‘Accretion-induced variability links young stellar objects, white dwarfs, …

Archives, in their many forms, save information from today that people will want to access and study in the future. This is a critical function of all archives, but it is especially important when it comes to storing data from today’s modern telescopes. NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory has collected data for over sixteen years …

Using images from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and ESO’s Very Large Telescope, astronomers have discovered never-before-seen structures within a dusty disc surrounding a nearby star. The fast-moving wave-like features in the disc of the star AU Microscopii are unlike anything ever observed, or even predicted, before now. The origin and nature of these features …

Powerful telescopes are coming soon. Where exactly shall we point them? Astronomers with the University of Washington’s Virtual Planetary Laboratory have created a way to compare and rank exoplanets to help prioritize which of the thousands discovered warrant close inspection in the search for life beyond Earth. The new metric, called the “habitability index for …

Measuring the mass of stars, planets and moons in the universe usually relies on studying how their motion relates to other bodies nearby. For some objects that are on their own in space, however, this method is impossible. But research published in the journal Science Advances describes a new technique that could prove useful. Scientists led by the University …

When a star with a mass of roughly ten solar masses finishes its life, it does so in a spectacular explosion known as a supernova, leaving behind as remnant “ash” a neutron star. Neutron stars have masses of one-to-several Suns, but they are tiny in size, only tens of kilometres. Neutron stars spin rapidly, and …